Hogy van Magyarul Hey!

The first few days of Budapest have been an absolute whirlwind!  There is almost this frenzied sense of not wanting to miss anything and then you catch yourself with the reminder that we'll be here almost three weeks and with a little thought and planning, the highlights won't be missed.  Above is a photo of Buda on the left (the hilly side, which isn't as obvious in this pic) and flat Pest on the right.  The Duna (Danube) flows between with the Chain (Széchenyi) Bridge connecting them and Margaret Island in the middle of the river.  We took a city tour by bus on Monday and I now have a long list of places to go back and see.  I don't care for pictures taken out of a moving bus window...

Most of the group (13/16) went to the Opera Gala to end the season Monday evening.  Carridy, Frantzie, Rita and I got a box, which ended up being the last four tickets for the sold out event.  It was amazing to not only see the inside of the opera house but hear a performance inside.  The Budapest Opera House is supposed to be the second best accoustically in the world(?).  We learned on the city tour that Hungary and Budapest is known to be second best in many things, ;-)


Today the lectures began and brought our first Hungarian history lesson and language lesson.  I had known beforehand that Hungarian is not related to many other languages (basically Finnish and Estonian, but even these three languages are very distantly connected) and that leads to it's reputation as being very difficult.  I still can't decide if my grasp of German helps or not...there are a few vowel sounds that I seem to be able to hear easier than others, but so many more consonants are swallowed, that I think it makes the pronunciations difficult to retain.   Luckily hi and bye are the same word, so for now...szia!

Another princess moment

Most people reading this travel blog will have heard my princess story about staying in Rochester for the MEMO conference last October and ending up in the presidental suite at the Double Tree, so I won't bore you by repeating that, but I had another princess moment on the way to Budapest.  With all the travel tribulations so far, when the gate scanner made a horrible buzzing noise while my boarding pass was being scanned all I could think was, "Now what?!?"  It ended up I was bumped to first/business class, which on an overnight, international flight was AMAZING!!  There were 6 total participants and the Hungarian Fulbright director who were upgraded, and I have to admit that I didn't have nice, gracious feelings towards those who were told their seat assignment at the gate.

We landed around 10:30 am on Sunday and within an hour were already checked into the hotel and an hour later a group of 7 were off to the Széchenyi Fürdö baths.

Figuring the claims of healing and medicinal powers in the hot pools and steam rooms would "cure" jet lag, why not give it a try?  Perfect way to spend the first day in Budapest.  We arrived back at the hotel relaxed and rejuvenated for our Budapest orientation and welcome dinner with the Fulbright Commission and US Embassy Cultural Affairs Agent, along the Danube River (check out photo #1).  A wonderful (and FULL) first day in Budapest!

Boo on...who??

In the midst of seminars and finally starting to orient myself to New Brunswick (for the 36 hours I'll be here!) I realized that my jewelry roll is missing from my checked luggage. :-(  I know it was in the bag when I left home, so the only reasonable thought is somewhere during transport...since it did take 28 hours to get to Newark...did I tell you that story??
It isn't a great monetary loss.  I not only don't own expensive jewelry, but would never be stupid enough to pack anything of value in checked luggage...but I now have only one pair of earrings and am without some of my favorite sentimental pieces.  Oh, well, time to let it roll off and I guess I'll need to go do some shopping.

One of these things is not like the other...

Well, here is the first official "picture of the day" post...on the second day of my Fulbright experience.  That probably isn't a fair statment as the Fulbright experience hasn't officially began because weather delays and other unstated issues caused my arrival in New Brunswick, NJ to be 28 hours later than anticipated.  Can you tell which boarding pass(es) were actually used?

I actually left Minneapolis on an earlier flight than anticipated Wednesday, June 23 and landed in Chicago with the reminants of sprinkles on the windows.  As I got off the plane I immediately saw that my connecting flight to Newark had been canceled.  Really???  It looked darn nice outside to me.  I've been on delayed flight a million times, but never actually had a flight straight out canceled.  The earliest available flight out was 6:30 pm, but when I plead my case about needing to meet up with four people I had never actually met in person before, for this flight, I was put on standby for the 12:30.  Within ten minutes 12:30 was canceled and I was put on standby for 2:30.  With all the last minute preparation and confusion no one had really thought to exchange cell phone numbers beforehand and just figured we'd all meet up together in NJ!  After some round-about phone exchanges, I finally connected with 3 other people stuck in Chicago by phone and met up with Karen B. at gate K3.  Let me just say, Karen B. is my new best friend! ;-)

When the 6:30 pm flight was canceled and the 2:30 was repeatedly delayed and delayed, I was rebooked for 12:30 pm on Thursday and Karen decided to give up on the 2:30 as well and rebook on the same flight as me.  We called Huang (who lives outside of Chicago and had already brought Carridy and Karen K. home with her) and got directions to her house.  Huang and her mother graciously put up four "strangers" in their home for the night and made us a wonderful dinner, as the weather raged outside.  The anticipated front came through around 5pm.

Huang, Carridy and Karen K. flew out of Chicago at 6:30am this morning and Karen B. and I arrived back at the airport ~8am for our 12:30 flight.  As the fates would have it, 12:30 was pushed back to 1:30 and with bated breath we pulled away from the gate...to then park on the tarmac for roughly another hour!  Touch down in Newark actually happened at 5:15pm, with our luggage arriving approximately twelve hours before us and finally arriving at the Hyatt at 6:30 pm...only 28 hours later than anticipated.  We've missed the first day and a half of orientation, but I think we're smart enough to catch up.

Susan - your "airport security approved travel toiletries" kit was a life saver!!
Susie - the travel treats were a godsend...you two really could have given me a heads up because obviously you both had an inkling!

This is a test...it is only a test.

I bought an iPod Touch to take with me this summer. Since I am also planning to finally utilize this blog to track and report on my Fulbright experience, I thought I'd check out the feasibility of posting from the Touch. Outcome?? While certainly not impossible, I definitely type faster with 8 fingers and at least one thumb than one finger tapping away. It's nice to know this is an option but confirms my plan to bring the laptop!